


Horizons

by meredithhildebrand



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Eventual Fluff, M/M, Simon is fascinated with the tall dark person who is Baz, Simon is sort of damaged, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, actually kind of a darker coffee shop au idak know anymore, but he knows and is sort of okay with it?, coffee shop AU, eventually lovers, like he's made peace with it? sort of? idrk anymore, non-magic au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-14 17:12:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11212536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meredithhildebrand/pseuds/meredithhildebrand
Summary: The first time he walks into the old, run-down cafe, it feels like he's from some sort of old vampire-villain comic book.





	1. Chapter 1

**_SIMON_ **

 

The first time he walks into the old, run-down cafe, it feels like he's from some sort of old vampire-villain comic book. 

The first time he walks into the cafe, he brings the rain in with him, and the sound of it from outside burns its way into my mind.

He has black hair that looks like it was cut out from the midnight sky. 

The first time he walks into the cafe, I feel like I'm going to explode because I can't recall ever seeing something so beautiful, yet so sad. 

He looks sad. He looks like he's out of place, sitting on one of the old, uncomfortable arm chairs that sits alone in a dark corner. I think that I can smell the putrid smell of cigarette smoke that twirls around him, masking him in an unmissable aura of unfamiliarness. 

_I want to know his name._

As I wipe down the counter with an old cloth, my chest feels like it's contracting and squeezing with each breath I force into my lungs. I can't focus when he's here. He's too fucking indelible for me to be able to force him away. He hasn't even looked in my direction, and I glance over my shoulder at the clock.

2:53 AM. Technically, the cafe should've closed two hours ago, but I stayed late because Penny couldn't handle the night shift. Normally, I don't go back to my apartment if I can help it. It's too dark there. 

At least when I'm locked in here, I can surround myself with light. Even if it's dim. Even if the old lightbulb only has enough life left in it to be cast on a few spots on the wood floor.

The small cafe, a collection of light brown walls and the permanent smell of it being left alone, has become home to me. The boss of the cafe, Ebb, doesn't have any problem with me staying here over night. 

Not many people come here. It's at the far side of town, at the end of the street that only has old, run down bars that don't attract much of anything except for people who don't really have anything better to do with themselves.

If you don't look for it, you couldn't notice it, even if you tried. It's almost invisible to people who are too wrapped up in their own heads. Their own problems, their own lives. 

At night, I like to think that it has some sort of spell cast on the building. A spell that drapes a cloak over it, shielding it from the eyes of people who don't tend the notice the small things. The things that don't stand out. It's almost comforting, in a weird sense. 

A spell that only allows people to see it if they have some sort of reason to. 

The first time I stumbled into the cafe, it was dark and raining outside. Just like tonight. I remember Ebb, at the counter, leaning over it with her eyes half closed and her elbows resting in the surface. I was cold down to my core, shivering from the freezing wind that wrapped itself around me, chilling my veins and turning them into blocks of ice. 

The minute I walked in, her eyes shot open, and they were blue, blue, blue. The colour of a summer's sky, bright and vibrant and saturated. 

She looked like she was too bright for the dim room. She shone much too vibrantly for it, and I knew that I was wondering why she was even there in the first place.

How could anyone that bright, that vibrant, be in a place like this?

People like her didn't belong in places like that. People like her sat in grassy meadows, weaving flowers together, dreaming about the impossible and striving for something similar. 

People like her were  _happy_. They didn't lock themselves in old cafes that look like they've been left behind for more years that I could count.

People like her, they belonged with the _stars_. They belonged in places that are full of light, full of happiness, full of joy. 

They didn't belong in places that look like me. Dark. Dim. Left alone for too long. Paint peeling off of the walls. 

I liked to think that she was some sort of magical creature. Someone sent down from another universe, another world. Another dimension.

A place where you could reach out and grab a handful of stars from the night sky. A place where nothing was bad, a place where hurt didn't exist. A place where people deserve to be happy. A place where you can wrap your fingers around moonlight and hold it there, in your hands, for as long as you wanted. A place where the air could heal your wounds as it entered and left your lungs.

A place where people can be untouchable. Immune to the dark side of the world, the side where people collapse on the ground in tears, a side of the world where people are tossed around and disregarded and abandoned. 

A side of the world that looks all too familiar to the one that we live in, regardless of what we want.

We don't get to choose what world we live in. All we get is one chance to live. One chance to do it right. 

One chance to learn that the world is a dark place. Sometimes, too dark to bear. 

One chance to try and forgive the world for giving not enough of one thing and too much of the other. Too many doses of hatred, of rage, of pain, of joy. It's enough to make me want to collapse into the ground and for it to open itself up, forcing me down into its centre. 

I remember her eyes searching mine. Her voice, like tinkling bells. Bright. Airy. Calm. She was like a ray of sunlight, the first time I saw her. 

She smiled at me, and it felt like it split the Earth in half, with me on one side of it and her on the other. Two halves. 

I knew that I hadn't ever seen something that looked as happy as her. She looked untouchable, like she was immune to all of the pain that the world can cause.

I couldn't bear it. I couldn't bear to see something so happy, so bright. It made my heart contract almost painfully in my chest.

I didn't want her to see my brokenness. I didn't want her to see the cracks, the scars, that were carved into my skin, because then she would know.

She would know that I was just another hollow, empty carcass. A shell of someone who tried so hard to heal but couldn't make it reality. 

I didn't want her to see my broken, because then she would be let in under my skin, and I wouldn't be able to get her out. She would be stuck there. 

_It took me years to realize that she wasn't as happy as I had originally thought._

~~~

I'm jerked from my thoughts when the boy's clear, calm voice cuts through them like the blade from a knife.

"Can I get a coffee?" he asks, and all I can do is stand there. My stomach twists into into knots and I think that if I don't say anything to him in reply, the ground will crack open beneath my feet and swallow me whole.

After a few embarrassing seconds of being unable to move, I nod at him too quickly as he takes a bill out of his wallet and drops it onto the counter. I turn away before I can put them into the cash register. 

I feel my cheeks begin to grow warm, and I'm thankful when I hear his footsteps receding away from the till and back to his chair in the corner. My movements are automatic; and before I know it, I'm done and I slide the cup of coffee across the counter towards him. 

I still don't know his name. I wonder if it's something that suits him, because he looks like he's some sort of dark being. He probably has a name like Dominic, or Nathaniel, or something else like that. Something that's pretentious. Or sophisticated. A name that comes with reputations and money and large houses that put the size of this café to shame.

He looks like he's never had any problems. Made smooth, porcelain, unharmed. Wrapped in pale skin that is unable to scar. He looks like he's had everything that he's ever wanted handed to him on a fucking silver platter. 

He looks like he's never had the chance to become broken. 

 _The exact opposite of me_. 

I clear my throat, gesturing with my hand towards the drink. He looks at me and gets up from his chair, and as he walks towards the counter, I notice his fingers toying with something. I decide to ignore it.

I bite the inside of my cheek as he reaches out his hand. His fingers are long and sleek, like twigs. They wrap around the mug and his dark eyes meet mine for a split second before snapping away, and I stare at his retreating figure as he makes his way back to his spot in the corner. 

My stomach turns into butterflies.

He sits down and crosses one leg over top of the other, and my stomach clenches. I bite down on my lip and press my lower back against the edge of the counter, and grip it with my hands. He's been here for at least half an hour and I still haven't been able to get up the courage to ask his _name_. Christ, I'm pathetic. After living for almost 20 years, and I can't ask someone what their name is. 

I worry my bottom lip between my teeth, staring at the rain that's pouring out of the clouds outside. I can hear the wind roaring in my ears. 

I let go of the counter edge and cross my arms over my chest, tilting my head upwards towards the ceiling. It's covered in pictures of landscapes. Green, rolling hills, a blue ocean, a sandy desert. It makes me want to leave this place. It makes me want to travel the world until I can't even remember the word _London_. 

It makes me want to wipe my whole life clean and to start over, all over again. 

The rain pelts down onto the roof and it calms me, relieving some of the pressure that builds with every second in my chest. I can't think straight when he's in here. Technically, I could ask him to leave, but he looks strangely content in he corner of the dark cafe.

_I don't want him to leave anyway._

I glance a look at him, to see that he's staring out of the window at the rain. His black hair falls against his pale cheeks in loose waves, and I wonder how soft his skin would feel against my cracked, blistered hands. It looks like it would be smooth. 

Maybe it could heal the cracked skin of my fingers.

_Maybe, just maybe, he could heal me too._

I feel my cheeks beginning to grow warmer, and I bite my tongue, trying to subside the warm ache that covers my cheeks. He takes a sip out of the mug and closes his eyes. He looks ethereal, sitting there. He looks like he could come from the same place as Ebb.

_The place of childhood fairy-tales and happy endings. The place of moonlight and stars and galaxies and supernovas. The place of "being unable to hurt."_

A younger me would've seen him and thought that he was a character from one of my comic books. A younger me would've asked him what kinds of weapons he has hidden underneath his coat, in his pockets. 

A younger me would've asked him where he comes from. What planet he lived on. Why he came here, if all this planet does is destroy the good things.

He looks clear. New. Untouchable. Unable to feel pain. Cloaked in invisible armour. 

A car drives by the window, and its headlights cast a golden glow onto his face for just a second, and then it's gone. It lit up his face and made it seem like it was made out of gold, not just human skin. 

I wonder if he's ever felt like the world is cracking apart beneath his feet. If he's ever felt like he's spinning on a merry-go-round, going faster and faster and faster until everything blurs together and you feel like you're going to vomit from the exertion. If he's ever lost himself.

I swallow. My stomach clenches and I try to ignore it, but with each breath I take, it feels like I'm being pumped full of air.  

I hear the chair slightly scrape against the floor, and the man stands up, adjusting his black coat. He glances at me, and something flashes behind his dark eyes, but I can't recognize it before it disappears, almost as if maybe it didn't exist at all.

He sets his jaw and makes his way to the door, before looking at me one last time. I force myself to meet his gaze. His eyes are dark, burning holes into my own. 

And then he's gone, bringing the rain in with him for the last time tonight. I can hear the heavy pattering of the water hitting the pavement, and then it stops, and then quiet overcomes the room of the empty café.

With a heavy breath, I sink down to the floor, holding my head in my hands and my back leaning against the wood doors of the cabinets. Only one thought is running through my head. 

 

_Maybe he'll come again tomorrow._

 

_~END~_


	2. 2

**_SIMON_ **

 

It's midnight when Baz comes back the next time. 

I pretend not to notice him, at first. And honestly, it was working. It was the first time in a long time that the café had more than one customer, and I was the only one working that day.

I keep my eyes trained on the floor when he comes in. At this point, I don't even care that the café should be closed. Midnights are just what Baz does. Midnights and 6:30 AM's. It's really fucking irritating, but I don't have the heart or the desire to tell him to get out.

Because, with each time he comes back, I feel like I'm falling apart all over again, like I'm being ripped apart at the seams and all of my effort to try to get over him just is released out of me like an oil spill. Covering the ground beneath my feet and drowning me whole. It's a sickening feeling.

But it's what it makes this so much more addictive. I can't get enough of him, and even though he hasn't said a single word to me  in months, I'm still clinging, still holding onto that small shred of possibility.

_I'm always clinging._

I've always been the first one to latch on and the last to let go. Ever since I was a kid, I was this way. 

I blame it on the fact that my parents abandoned me. 

                          ***

 

"What are you doing?" I ask, my voice a quiet, unfamiliar sound. It's like a scared animal, backing away from the people who frightened it. It makes my blood run cold.

He looks at me and sneers. "None of your fucking business," he replies, and his voice is a dagger, sharp and painful and damaging. His eyes flashing like there are flames inside of them. 

I take a step back from his chair. "Fine," I say back to him, and walk away, curling my fingers into loose fists at my sides.

_He's infuriating. Completely fucking infuriating._

My limbs feel like they're being set on fire and I think that my brain is going hazy, and I half-collapse onto the counter. My head spins and I hold my forehead in my hands with my elbows leaning on the surface.

_Calm down. Calmdowncalmdowncalmdown._

I snarl and shut my eyes and pretend to sink into the dirt beneath the floorboards. If I focus hard enough, I think that I'll feel the particles of soil fill my ears, my throat. Stopping my ability to intake breath.

I know what it feels like to be unable to breathe. Once, Ebb took me to the beach. I didn't want to tell her that I couldn't swim, because after all, shouldn't eleven year olds be able to swim? I had thought so, at that point. 

So when Ebb brought me down to the shoreline, I felt like I was two steps away from losing myself due to panicking. She told me to stand at the water's edge, with my toes sliding in the wet sand. It was the strangest thing that I had ever felt before, and I remember her voice, calm and smooth like the waves themselves.

" _Watch for the waves, Simon,_ " she said, smiling down at me, with her blonde hair falling into her eyes. The strands looked like rays of gold in the summer sunlight. 

I remember seeing the waves flow through the cracks between my toes, feeling the water slip underneath my nails and cover my feet. It was cold, and I remember flinging backwards, away from it. Because it was unfamiliar. And I wasn't used to the unfamiliar. 

Ebb laughed her tinkling-bells laugh and ruffled my hair. I remember feeling like I wanted to leave, but Ebb took my hand and lead me back so that I was just inches into the water. It was up to my ankles. The cool liquid slipped and slid over and underneath my feet, and the sand covered the tips of my toes. My hair flew in the wind.

" _See, it's not that bad, Simon. The water's your friend, isn't it?"_ she said, and I was so mesmerized with the shimmering waves that I just nodded without hesitation back at her.

Ebb looked out into the sky, and I looked up at her, seeing that her eyes were closed with her hair floating in the wind. She seemed like she didn't have a single thing to worry about.

I took a step forward, and another, and another, until I was thigh-high deep in the water. I looked back at Ebb, and her face was split apart into a grin, but there was also something different behind her blue eyes. Something sad. Not blue-blue, but darker. Meloncholia, maybe. But I didn't recognize it then. All I thought was that she had looked sort of sad, even though she was covered in light. For me, it was strange. It still is. I still don't know what happened to her, that made her sad. 

Penny says that she had some dark life before the café and that she was split down the middle with happiness and sadness. To me, it seems ridiculous. But the more that I think about it, it makes sense. There's a fine line between happiness and disappointment, and maybe Ebb just had too much of both to be able to let the other fade away a little. 

And then, the riptide came. And as the eleven-year-old that I was, I didn't know what it was which was inevitably not that great of an outcome.

The water swirled around me and suddenly, I was ripped off my feet and taken below the water's surface. I couldn't see anything, couldn't hear a sound. It was like I was in my own bubble, all I heard was the roaring of the waves and the feeling of thinking that I wasn't going to make it out alive.

I remember opening my eyes and immediately closing them again because of the stinging. The raw, burning feeling. All I could see was blue, blue, blue. My feet couldn't touch the ground and I was flailing around, and that's when I opened my mouth in an attempt to scream, to yell out for help.

_That was a dumb decision. A colossally dumb decision._

I remember the water flooding into my mouth, the saltiness of it stinging my gums. I remember it blocking off my air pipe like it was sewing itself closed, and then everything went black. My body felt weightless and hollow, like everything was just sucked out of it. 

The next thing I knew, I was gasping for air, for life, on a hospital bed in a place that I'd never seen before. Ebb wasn't there. I was alone, completely alone. 

The smell of bleach and medicine filled my nose, and I remember breathing through my mouth instead. There was a needle poked into my arm. I kicked my feet upwards at the end of the bed, and gritted my teeth when a piercing, throbbing pain ran up and through my arm. I wanted Ebb, I wanted her there with me, because she was familiar.

I wanted to run away. And that feeling, that sinking, drowning, anxious feeling, was one that I was all too familiar with. It was just how I dealt with things. And I'm not saying that it was a good idea, but it was the only way to stop me from feeling like I didn't want to go on anymore. It took me until I was 16 to realize that killing myself wasn't going to help anything.

                           ***

Baz leaves the café a few minutes after I talked to him. I pretend to be busy with cleaning the counter, but my eyes have no difficulty following his movements. 

I wring out the washcloth in my hands as he opens the door, and then he's gone. A cool breeze comes in as he walks out, and I let out a breath, trying to relieve some of the pressure that's building in my chest. 

I don't know what I'm waiting for. It feels like I'm just grasping onto dead air, and desperately trying to hold on. I just need to let go. Of this, of him. Of the idea of us being together. Nothing's going to happen. People like him don't fall for people like me. 

_Well, no one ever said that love was a fair game._

I drop the washcloth into the small basket on the shelf beneath the counter, and run a hand through my hair. 

_I still want to talk to him. I still want to figure out why he comes here._

I glance up at the clock, and exhale. It's just after 1:00 AM. 

I don't really feel like staying here tonight. 

I finish cleaning up and shut off the lights, and then I open the café door. The cool air clears some of the hazy mist in my head, and I feel like I can finally breathe again. Baz's presence makes me feel like I'm walking on egg shells around him and I'm seconds away from getting one stuck into my foot. 

He's a lot more intimidating than he probably thinks he is. He looks like some sort of comic-book character. 

I start walking down the street, my footfalls echoing on the pavement. The air is cool for a mid-summer night. 

When i make it into my flat, I don't even bother going into my bedroom. I just collapse onto the couch, burying my head into the pillow. 

I don't dream of anything. 

                             ***


End file.
